Free A Heart in Sun and Shadow (Cymru That Was Book 1) by Annie Bellet

Sometimes a women’s intuition begins early, it seems.” She smiled a wise and careful smile that disarmed much of the tension in the room.
    Wladus’s half-gagged scream disarmed the rest as the focus shifted back to her.
    “Áine, scrub your arm, my heart. We’ll need your capable little hands to free the baby.”
    Áine nodded and dashed to the hearth. She gritted her teeth against the scalding heat of the water, but she knew that it must be as hot as she could stand to keep infection from opening a path to evil in the body.
I guess I get to free two babies today.
She turned back to Tesn with wide green eyes.
    “Tell me what to do, mother.”
    It was nothing like freeing the seal pup. Tesn guided her verbally as Áine slid her oiled hand inside Wladus’s body. She felt the soft crown of the head and gently pushed it back until she could slip her own slim hand into the womb. She felt the cord, letting her strange, double sense of being both the child and herself guide her to the right place. She closed her green eyes and slowly, so terribly slowly, loosened the birth cord until she could twist it free of the child’s head.
    She let go and pulled her hand from the woman as soon as she felt that the baby had bloodflow again. Her hand was covered in blood and sticky fluids and a fresh rush of blood followed its removal from the womb. Áine went to rinse it off as Tesn had the women lift Wladus to crouch so she might push again.
    Áine leaned against the hearth and watched. There was a lot of blood now, but births always had a lot of blood. The baby came, Tesn gently pulling the child free and hanging him upside-down as she expertly cleared the fluids from his tiny nose with her other hand. The boy’s first cry rang out through the lodge and broke the silence. The women laughed and patted their friend as Áine came forward with a sharp knife and soft cloth. The wisewoman and her assistant bathed the baby. He had the thick white cream coating his skin that newborns sometimes got when the birth was long or difficult.
    Wladus slowly stopped bleeding as she drank down the special tea Tesn prepared for her. She was helped onto the bed they’d brought in for her and tucked in with a heavy quilt. Her son’s appetite whet with a little honey on his tongue, he settled in and drank his first meal with barely a complaint.
    Deicws, Wladus’s husband, came in and greeted his wife with a broad smile. His first child was a son and a tiny perfect babe at that. He gave a necklace of beautiful shell beads to Tesn in thanks.
    “We’ve lost the two before this, early in her time. Thank you for saving my son.” His front teeth were crooked when he smiled behind his thick beard.
    “It be my assistant you’ll want to thank. It was her intuition and her small hands that saved your son’s life,” Tesn said, taking the necklace. Áine knew they’d trade it in a bigger village for supplies. A wisewoman carried only what she needed and had no use for baubles.
    Deicws turned to the strange girl. If not for her large green eyes, he’d have wondered more if she were not a changeling or one of the Fair Folk what with her pale white skin and blood-red hair. She had a strangely brave and confident demeanor as well, rare in a girl so young.
    “I thank you, Wise One’s apprentice.” He nodded solemnly to her.
    Áine nodded to him as well, smiling at the appreciation and glowing with pride that Tesn approved of what she’d done.
    They slept on the cot, Tesn rising at dawn to check on the sleeping mother and baby. Áine, bleary-eyed, sat up as her mother returned to the bed.
    “I felt his pain, I felt her pain. How is that, Tesn?” she whispered.
    “I don’t know, my heart.” Tesn had been thinking on that very thing since the others had left them. “I think perhaps it was the selkie’s gift.” She kissed the top of Áine’s head and drew her in close.
    That made sense to Áine’s young mind. She was special, after all, so it was